1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an information processing system, an information processing method, a software program for carrying out the information method, and an information storage medium comprising such software program.
More specifically, the present invention relates to an information processing system, an information processing method, a software program for carrying out the information method, and an information storage medium comprising such software program, which effectively shorten the time needed for examining the information to be disclosed through an electronic Bulletin Board System, etc., in particular, on the Web (World Wide Web) pages.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has become popular for various organizations such as business enterprises and research institutes, etc., with the recent increasing usage of the Internet, to utilize Web pages, etc. in order to disclose their activities, etc. to the public as a part of information disclosure. However, the wide usage of the Internet, at the same time, provides a possibility for the public to view the disclosed information, and thus it is necessary to pay attention to the contents of the information to be disclosed. In other words, it is necessary to obviate the problems such as an accidental leakage of company confidential information or a deterioration of the brand image of the company due to the typographical errors, the accidental omissions of letters and the like included in the disclosed information.
In order to solve such problems, the information to be disclosed needs examination in advance. As one of such techniques, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Number 11-306100 discloses “Posted Messages Viewing Systems”. The system prepares examination criterion data beforehand, and puts up in the viewing database only the posted message data that are considered allowable, as general-user viewable information, through the examination process using the examination criterion data. The examination process comprises a “primary level” for general examiners and a “secondary level” for experienced examiners, and the process is configured to proceed to the “secondary level” when the examination in the “primary level” is indecisive due to the lesser experience of the examiners, etc.
In such systems, however, the examination criterion data needs to be created previously and the examination quality is influenced by the validity of the data. That is to say, if the examination criterion data were biased, the examined posted messages would be inevitably biased as well. Therefore, a quality examination process may not be always provided. Further, the posted data are not disclosed until they have gone through the predetermined examination process, thus the disclosure may be delayed due the reasons such as absence of the examiners and the like.
Also, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Number 2000-49777 discloses “Electronic Bulletin Board Systems and Storage Medium used therein”, in such a system, category information is added, by examiners, to each of the miscellaneous posted messages from the public, allowing an user-friendly way of surfing the Web pages by presenting them in categories based on the category information. The system includes functions such as automatically extracting broadcast-prohibited terms at the time of adding the category information to the posted messages. However, in such a system, the disclosure may also be delayed as a result of a possible delayed categorizing process due to the reasons such as absence of the particular examiners.
Additionally, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Number 11-253377 discloses “Public Information Transmitting Methods”. Such method, when transmitting public information such as various news, etc. through an electronic bulletin board system, is configured to put up articles from reliable particular users without examination, but to examine previously, by particular examiners (users), articles from users besides the reliable particular users.
In such method, since the articles from the particular users are unexamined, broadcast-prohibited terms, for example, may not be checked and problems such as typographical errors and accidental omissions of letters may arise due to careless mistakes. In addition to that, since the articles from the users besides the particular users need to be examined by the particular examiners (users), the disclosure of such articles may also be delayed due to the reasons such as absence of such particular examiners and the like.
Also, it is possible to conceive such a system in which, when examining the information such as documents etc. to be disclosed to the public, requesting for a full approval from relevant members of a company, etc., for example, using groupware and the like in a company. In case of such a system, since full approval of the relevant members is required, when one of the members is missing due to the absence, etc., as mentioned above, the resolution is delayed, which could also lead to the delay in disclosure.
Therefore, according to the related art, there is a possibility that the disclosure of the information is delayed when, in particular, the examiners to check the information to be disclosed are absent, for example.